Montreal·Photos

Bulldozers and cranes for 50th birthday of Turcot Interchange

Tuesday marks 50 years since one of the province’s busiest interchanges was opened to traffic.

Work on the new interchange is 40 per cent complete, officials say

Fifty years after it was built, the heart of the Turcot Interchange today is filled with support beams, cranes, trucks and orange cones. (Charles Contant/CBC)

Tuesday marks 50 years since one of the province's busiest interchanges was opened to traffic.

Today, the Turcot Interchange is being dismantled to make way for a new one, which is expected to be completed by the fall of 2020.

The new Turcot will provide a direct access to Highway 20 from Angrignon Boulevard and Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue.

The assistant director of the KPH-Turcot Consortium, Sébastien Marcoux, said the project is 40 per cent complete.

"Twenty-seven structures are currently under construction," he said. "We will be finalizing 10 structures at the end of the year."

Every day, more than 300,000 vehicles use the interchange.

To accommodate that traffic during the dismantling of the old interchange, more than 50 detour roads have been built so far.

Here's a look at what the interchange looks like now:

With files from CBC's Sudha Krishnan, photographs by Charles Contant